Graduation is around the corner – are you ready?

With graduation coming up fast for many post-secondary students, what better time to collaborate with my friends over at PartSelect to show the new grad how to party like a rockstar? When PartSelect reached out to me about sharing their article on how to open and chill champagne (spoiler alert: it’s not actually about the pop!) I thought graduation was the perfect time to share it. After all, if you aren’t celebrating with champagne have you even graduated?

Check out their tips for how to master your bubbly:

How to Properly Chill and Open Sparkling Wine
It’s Not About The Pop!

If you’re reading this, the chances are good that you’re cheering for, and with, bubbles. Sparkling wine has arguably never been a more popular beverage choice, especially in the U.S. The Wine Institute reported that in 2015, Champagne and sparkling wine sales in the U.S. grew by two million cases, topping off at an incredible 21.7 million cases that year.
You might be a bit shocked to learn, however, that the iconic imagery of celebrating major life events with the loud pop of a Champagne cork flying across the room has got it all wrong, at least when it comes to the best way to enjoy your bubbly-drinking experience. And if you’re like most of us, the bottle of sparkling wine at the end of that cork is being served too warm, too. Yeah, we know, we’re party poopers, but we’re trying to help you out, here.

While a cork-turned-flying-projectile is admittedly kind of fun, there are better ways of ensuring that your celebrations include getting the best out of the bottles of bubbly on which you spent your hard-earned cash. Those start with knowing the best way for chilling your sparkling wine (hint: it involves salt), and the best way to open it once it’s cooled down (hint: it’s not supposed to be noisy).

Here’s a primer on chilling and opening your bubbles, with an overview of the science behind it, for those of you who are skeptics at heart, and in case you want to impress your friends with your wine knowledge.

Chilling it Out

Due to its carbonation, sparkling wine generally tastes best when it’s served colder than most other wine styles. Typically, this is in the 43–48 degrees F (6–7 degrees C) temperature range. A lower temperature also slows down the molecular activity in the bottle, making it safer to open; warmer carbonated liquid tends to foam up more – which can make a mess. So, in a way, chilling sparkling wine is the first step in properly opening it.

You can achieve this chill-down by putting your bubbles into the refrigerator, but that takes about three hours, and mostly kills the romance associated with whipping out a bottle of celebratory sparkling wine. The quickest way to get your sparkling wine to the right serving temperature – usually getting the trick done on a 750ml bottle in 20 minutes or less – is by using an ice bucket, ice, water, and salt.

First, fill the ice bucket about halfway with ice and water. This is the most important step in chilling the wine, and the one that even some seasoned professionals sometimes miss. A mixture of ice and water will chill down your sparkling wine much more quickly than ice alone. For that, we can thank the laws of thermodynamics (you know, the stuff you slept through during science class in high school). For the wine to cool, it needs to transfer its heat to its surroundings; the colder the surroundings, the more quickly it can do this. Ice, of course, cools the area around the bottle, but ice alone will have many air pockets between the ice cubes, and air, being a gas, isn’t great at heat/energy transfer. Water, on the other hand, is a pretty good medium for transferring heat, and it will fill in the air pockets between the ice cubes, increasing the amount of cooling material in contact with the bottle, thereby getting the bottle of bubbles cooler, faster.

Adding a handful of salt to the ice/water mixture before gently putting the bottle into the ice bucket is also a good idea. Why? Because salt will lower the freezing temperature of the ice water in the bucket. When that happens, there’s more melting than freezing happening in the bucket, increasing the ice water’s ability to absorb energy from the wine bottle, and minimizing the cooling time required. See, you should have paid more attention in physics class!

Don’t “Pop” it Open

Now that you’ve given your sparkling wine a 15-or-so minute chill-out, it’s time to open it up. Notice we didn’t say “pop” it open. Flying corks can be dangerous, and should be avoided. Not only that, but a loud “pop!” indicates that you’re releasing a lot of the carbonation in the sparkling wine, and you paid extra for those bubbles – so we want to keep them inside the bottle as best we can. Also, forget using a corkscrew on sparkling wine, because that’s dangerous; this needs to be done by hand.

First, get a small towel and dry off your bottle after removing it from the ice bucket. Next, remove the foil around the top of the bottle, and grab the bottle with one hand. Using your other hand, grab the wire tab at the bottom of the “cage” that secures the cork, and untwist it by turning it counter-clockwise.

While doing this, keep a thumb from your other hand on the top of the cage, and be sure that you’re not pointing the bottle at anyone (including yourself) or anything expensive. The reason: you’re holding a potential missile. There are 5 to 6 atmospheres of pressure inside that corked bottle of bubbly, equating to about 70 and 90 pounds per square inch. That’s the reason that Champagne bottles are thicker than still-wine bottles: so that they don’t explode. The pressure is going to want to find the quickest release, which is the opening in the neck of the bottle.

Once the wire cage is loosened, put the small towel over the top of the bottle, hold it at about a 45° angle, and continue to hold the top with one hand. Start twisting the bottle – yes, the bottle – slowly with one hand, while applying pressure against the cork and cage with the hand that’s holding the towel-covered top of the bottle. The carbonation will be trying to pop that cork right out, but that’s not what we want. Continue applying slight “negative” pressure as you twist the bottle, until the cork loosens and you can release it slowly.

If done correctly, instead of a pop, you should hear a sigh…which, hopefully, is like the sound that you’ll be making after drinking and appreciating your properly chilled and properly opened bottle of bubbles!

Source: PartSelect BlogAuthor: Joe Roberts

How’s that? So when you’re out celebrating your graduation this year, make sure you show everybody just how ready you are for the real world. After all, you have the real skills, right?

I always find that the weeks after the holidays drag on. It’s always so hard to get back into the swing of things after having two weeks of doing nothing! That’s why when I found this recipe on Girl Vs. Dough for pink champagne cookies I thought it would be fun to try it out over the weekend. I am so excited to share how they turned out because they are actually the cutest things! They have a really sweet and tart flavour and the champagne gives the icing a delicate pink tinge so the cookie ends up looking super girly and fun. They would be perfect for a tea party, bridal shower, or just getting together with your girlfriends!

Pour pink champagne into a medium pot with high heat. Boil champagne until reduced to ¾ cup, about 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer to a measuring cup; chill until cold. It smells really sweet as it boils and because you’re using high heat it gives of some steam; this is normal don’t freak out.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder.

In a separate large bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, cream ½ cup sugar (so half the total sugar you have set aside, don’t worry, the other stuff comes in handy down the road!) and shortening until smooth. If you have a mixer, I usually use the attachment you see in the picture, but you can use anything you want it won’t affect the dough. The good thing about most shortening is that the package has a scale on it for you to measure. Just cut off a chunk at the 1/3 mark! Add ½ cup of the cold champagne reduction (set aside the remaining 1/4); stir to combine (shortening will be lumpy).

Add flour mixture and stir until a very soft dough forms. And by “very soft” I mean it’s really really soft! It drips a little. I don’t know why it creates such amazing cookies but it’s supposed to be a little runny so don’t feel like you’ve screwed up!

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Bring out the rest of your sugar and pour it in a pie plate or plate with a bit of a lip. Scoop dough into 1-inch balls, rolling each ball ofdough in remaining sugar before transferring to prepared baking sheet. The sugar makes them easier to handle since they’re so runny, so if you’re having issues sprinkle the sugar on the dough until you can roll it into little balls. Size the balls depending on how big you want your cookies. The recipe yields about two dozen but I made mine extra big so I only got about half that.

Lightly press down dough with fingers or the back of a measuring cup dipped in sugar. Flatten them to about the thickness you see in the picture. The first tray I baked I didn’t push that hard and when it came to ice them later the icing dripped off a lot so it was a pain to get them covered. If you make them so they have a flat top, that icing covers them perfectly! Bake 12 to 15 minutes until edges are just set. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheets, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the icing: Whisk together powdered sugar with remaining ¼ cup cold champagne reduction and pinch of salt. I used anicing knife to cover the cookies but that’s only because I’m neurotic. You can just as easily dip them, the icing is really soft so that works out well. Let icing set for a couple of minutes (or, if you’re impatient like me, about 1 minute), then sprinkle with pearl sugar or sprinkles. I used the left over silver balls I used for the Christmas cupcakes, and I really liked how they turned out!

Let icing set completely before serving. It takes a while so leave them on a cooling tray, otherwise you’ll smudge the icing and hate yourself (from experience here guys). If you’re impatient and can’t handle the stress of watching them cool (again, experience…), just walk away. It helps me 🙂

And that’s that! I love cookie recipes because I am constantly in the mood to bake and everybody loves cookies. I keep a few favour bags on hand to package a couple up and give them to friends. It’s a really good way to brighten someones day, and avoid eating a dozen cookies by yourself (and let’s be honest, that’s a valid concern!)